Manufacture of shoes



y 8 31 My. um ER 2,080,531

MANUFACTURE OF SHOES Filed Jan. 8, 1936 /NVE/VTUR- Patented May 18, 1937 I NiTED STATES MANUFACTURE OF SHOES Application January 8, 1936, Serial No. 58,154

Claims.

This invention relates to shoes and to methods of making the same.

Objects of the invention are to provide a shoe having the appearance and many of the advan- 5 tages of a Goodyear welt shoe at a low cost and to produce a shoe of this type having a closed shank, that is, having the welt at the shank portion brought into close proximity to the shoe upper.

In one aspect the invention comprises a shoe having its upper lasted over an unchanneled insole, an outsole, and a slashed leather welt attached at its outer marginal portion to the outsole and having its inner portion extending under the overlasted portion of the upper substantially as far as the upper extends, the attachment of the Welt to the upper being effected solely by a cement bond. Preferably the portion of the welt which engages the upper tapers inwardly of the sole and the attachment of the outer marginal portion of the welt to the outsole is effected by cement and stitching.

In another aspect the invention consists in a method of making shoes which comprises cementattaching a welt to an outsole, attaching the outer marginal portion of the welt to the outsole in the shank portion only by stitches, cement-attaching the combined sole and welt to a shoe, and thereafter sewing the outer marginal portion of the Welt at the forepart to the outsole. In cementing the sole and its pre-attached welt to the shoe, the shank portion of the sole is conformed closely to the last by the sole-attaching pressure and the welt brought into close proximity to the upper; and, since at this portion of the shoe the welt and outsole are already sewed together, there is no occasion for bending the sole and welt away from the shoe as would be necessary if the stitching of the welt and sole together were deferred until after the cement-attachment of the welt to the shoe. At the forepart, however, it is an advantage to stitch the welt and sole together after the sole and welt are attached to the shoe since then the shoe upper may be employed as a guide in inserting the stitches and the refined appearance of a Goodyear welt shoe at the forepart is assured.

In the drawing,

Fig. l is an enlarged fragmentary perspective view, partly in section, showing a sole having the outer marginal portion of a welt attached thereto by cement;

Fig. 2 is a perspective View of a sole and a welt attached thereto by cement and having the welt at the shank portion of the sole also attached thereto by stitches;

Fig. 3 is an enlarged fragmentary perspective view, partly in section, of the forepart of a shoe made in accordance with the present invention but before the welt is stitched to the sole at the forepart; and

Fig. 4 is a perspective View of a shoe made in accordance with the present invention indicating the last step of attaching the welt to the sole at the forepart in the process of being performed.

The following procedure is illustrative of my improved method of producing close shank welt shoes: I first attach the outer marginal portion of a welt NJ to the marginal portion of a rounded sole I2 by means of cement, For this purpose rubber cement or latex is preferably used. The welt Iii so attached is preferably of the flexed type, that is, one having its inner marginal portion slashed by either vertical or oblique slashes and, in order to provide the effect of an inwardly beveled welt, the welt is preferably slashed in the manner disclosed by removing material from the inner marginal portion of the Welt, for example, by making a series of notches M sharply inclined to the vertical through the inner marginal portion of the welt. The inner marginal portion of the welt will then, when pressed down as shown in Fig. 1, present a series of surfaces it forming a part of the original surface of the welt and a series of slight depressions E8 the surfaces of which were formed by the notching operation, the inner marginal portion of the welt consisting of a number of overlapping tongues 29 which, by sliding upon each other, facilitate the bending of the welt to follow the sharply curved portions of the sole. Preferably the upper surface of the welt H! is a grain surface and therefore it is desirable to roughen the surfaces 16 of the welt and this roughening should extend outwardly a little beyond the notches to include all portions of the welt which are to be hidden by the upper.

After the welt H! has been cement-attached to the sole l2, a line of stitches 22 is sewed through the welt and sole at each side of the shank portion of the sole, the stitches extending from the ends of the welt and breast line to substantially the ball line of the sole and; the welt having been roughed as explained, cement is applied to the roughened area in the usual manner. The shoe is prepared for attachment to the described sole and welt unit by lasting an upper 24 and its lining 26 over an unchanneled insole 28 in any usual manner. The overlasted portion of the upper is then roughened and cemented in accordance with the usual practice in making compo shoes. Filling material 30, if required, may be applied to the shoe bottom and, after activating the cement on the upper or on the welt or both, the shoe and sole are located relatively to each other and pressure is applied to efiect cementattachment of the sole and welt unit to the upper in any suitable sole-attaching press. After the shoe is removed from the sole-attaching press, the forepart of the welt and sole are attached by stitching 32 which is preferably done by any usual outsole sewing machine by which a lockstitch seam is made. This stitching 32 extends from the forward end of the stitching 22 at one side of the shoe around to the stitching 22 at the other side of the shoe.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States is:

1. That improvement in methods of making shoes which consists in cement-attaching a welt to the marginal portion of an outsole, said welt having its inner portion slashed to facilitate bending the welt about the periphery of the sole, roughening the surface of the inner slashed portion of the welt, cement-attaching the slashed portion of the welt to the overlasted upper of a shoe, and sewing at least a portion of the welt to the outsole.

2. That improvement in methods of making shoes which comprises providing a leather welt having in its inner marginal portion notches extending obliquely to the plane of the welt to render the welt flexible, forming a welt and sole unit by attaching the flesh side of the welt to the periphery of an outsole, roughening the inner portion of the welt, and cement-attaching the overlasted portion of a shoe upper to the welt and sole unit.

3. That improvement in methods of makin shoes which comprises providing a leather welt having in its inner marginal portion notches extending obliquely to the plane of the welt to render it flexible, said inner marginal portion being thus rendered thinner than the outer portion and more yielding under pressure, attaching the flesh side of the welt to the periphery of an outsole, roughening the inner portion of the welt,

. and cement-attaching the overlasted portion of a shoe upper to the inner portion of the welt.

4. That improvement in methods of making shoes which comprises forming a sole and welt unit by cement-attaching a welt to the peripheral portion of an outsole, sewing the welt to the outsole at the shank portion of the sole, cementattaching the sole and welt unit to the overlasted portion of a shoe upper, and thereafter sewing together the welt and the outsole about the forepart. c I

5. That improvement in methods of making shoes which comprises cement-attaching a welt to the peripheral portion of an outsole, sewing the welt to the shank portion of the outsole, cement-attaching the welt to the overlasted portion of a shoe upper, and thereafter sewing together the Welt and outsole about the forepart I with a seam spaced uniformly from the shoe upper.

DARIUS W. BUNKER. 

